Theological/philosophical/cultural/spiritual thoughts about God and the Real Jesus.

Tuesday, February 17, 2015

The "Rapture" Theory Is Unbiblical Because A-contextual

Here's some more on the unbiblical nature of "rapture theory" - Craig Keener, "Left Behind." Some of the bullets are:

"No biblical text specifically and unambiguously mentions believers being removed before the final tribulation. That limitation may be why we have no clear record of any interpreter noticing the view in the Bible before 1830."

"The view was held by none of the church fathers, none of the Reformers such as Luther or Calvin, none of the leaders in various evangelical revival movements such as John Wesley, Jonathan Edwards, or Charles Finney. I am reasonably certain that today the majority of evangelical biblical scholars (as well as virtually all other Christian biblical scholars) reject it."

"Jesus's saying that mentions some being "left behind" may refer to the righteous left behind when the wicked are "taken" to judgment (Matthew 24:38-41), to where vultures feed on corpses (Luke 17:34-37)!" (Here "taken" is bad, "left behind" is good.)

"After I became a Christian, I was initially schooled in "left behind" theology myself. Once I began reading the Bible carefully, however, I discovered that every text supporting this view was out of context." (Me too.)